FSG News

Scenario Projects, FSG People, and Current Events

August 2009

PERROTTET ELECTED TO MILLENNIUM PROJECT POSITION…

Charles Perrottet, one of the founding partners of The Futures Strategy Group, has been elected Vice Chairman of The Millennium Project. With its network of 32 Nodes and over 2,700 participants from around the world, it is the largest participatory think tank in the world. It publishes the award-winning annual State of the Future report, which includes discussion of the 15 Global Challenges identified by the Project, and produces the Futures Research Methodology, a compendium of peer-reviewed chapters on futures methodology.

INTRODUCING THE "LODESTAR COLLABORATIVE”…

FSG and its alliance partners Board Advisory Services and Collective Intelligence are now serving the market under the name of the Lodestar Collaborative. Lodestar specializes in forward-looking risk management and business planning for firms confronted by extreme volatility and uncertainty in their operating environments. Lodestar’s “Resilient Governance” process customizes FSG’s Recession-Recovery Scenarios to provide financial service sector and other clients with a realistic and future-oriented backdrop for risk analysis, opportunity identification and sustainable business process improvement.

PANAMA CANAL LOOKS TO THE FUTURE…

The Panama Canal Authority has recently announced a major milestone in the expansion of the Panama Canal. In March all bids were received for the design and construction of new much larger locks for the canal system to operate alongside existing locks. The expansion project as a whole is set for completion in 2014 (the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal) at an estimated cost of $5.25 billion. When completed, this expansion will double the waterway’s capacity and allow the transit of modern large container, dry bulk, tanker, and passenger vessels.

A scenario-based strategic planning project with FSG was one of the key milestone events in 1997 that led to finalizing a decision to move forward on the “third set of locks and lanes.” The strategic planning project (which looked at future business issues as well as the canal expansion) was completed shortly before the U.S. turned full administrative and operational control of the Canal to the Panamanians. The scenario planning project included Panamanian and U.S. Canal executives as well as business and political leaders from Panama. For complete information on the Panama Canal expansion project see www.pancanal.com.

FSG READING RECOMMENDATION…

Check out David Helvarg’s most recent book, Rescue Warriors (St. Martin’s Press, New York 2009), for a well-written and compelling look into the day-to-day operations and missions of the U.S. Coast Guard. Helvarg tells his story from the perspective of, as Coasties would say, “the deck plate” – the men and women doing the “routine” tasks of the Coast Guard: inspecting ships, protecting port assets, rescuing swimmers and distressed sailors (often in the worst weather conditions imaginable), coordinating oil spill responses, interdicting drugs at sea and capturing drug runners, and conducting important global diplomatic missions little known to the American public. While the book is focused, appropriately, on the regular (and often heroic) work of the USCG, it does conclude with a two-page discussion of Project Evergreen – the scenario planning project FSG has supported for more than a decade..

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